Elevation Gain - 4,500 feet
Our training for the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu has begun! My parents were thoughtful enough to watch the kids while Stacey and I began our training sessions for Peru in September.
We drove down to Buena Vista for dinner and then a little ways up Cottonwood Pass to the trail head Friday night. Typically I get up really early (e.g. 3 a.m.) for hikes, drive out, hike, then drive back. This trip was the first time I drove out the day before and car camped. The new 4Runner "camper" worked great. We just laid the seats down in the back and got all comfy on air mattresses and sleeping bags. Cleaner, warmer, no insects, and no setup/teardown required like you have with tent camping.
This was Stacey's second 14er and my 24th. However, I was the slow one on the day. It took longer than usual and was one of my harder days on the mountain for several reasons. First, I had received 4 immunizations for Peru two days prior, which made me a little bit off. Then, I was battling some dehydration on top of it being a really hot day. I've also been fighting a bad ankle (feels similar to a sprained ankle) for a couple of weeks. I went really slow in between painful steps and feeling a little nauseous until we made it to the top. At the top I reached for my miracle product, Red Bull. After drinking a little bit of that I felt amazing and back to normal. It's always been great hiking, but this time it REALLY worked.
The hike back down was long and hot. Towards the end I took of my shirt because I couldn't take it any longer. Thankfully we had a ice cold cooler with water waiting for us. The area was beautiful especially towards the bottom section near the river. This was good training. We did 9.25 miles but 9,000 total feet up and down. Although the Inca Trail is going to be about 26.0 miles over four days, we'll only gain/descend a total of about 12,000 vertical feet. We did 75% of that total today.
